Bitcoin investors should be braced for – but not put off by – “much greater government scrutiny,” warns the boss of one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory and fintech organizations.

The warning from Nigel Green, CEO and founder of deVere Group, comes on the day Coinbase, the biggest cryptocurrency platform in the U.S., prepares for its public debut.  

It launches its initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq under the symbol COIN starting on Wednesday.

On Tuesday on the deVere Crypto app, Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, hit all-time highs of $64,000.

Mr Green says: “Coinbase’s direct listing is a truly momentous day for the cryptoverse.

“Should it hit its private market valuation of $100 billion, it would immediately become one of the 85 most valuable companies in the U.S.

“Of course, this is driven by the fact the world’s two biggest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum, to which Coinbase is intrinsically linked, have risen 800% and 1,300% respectively over the last year.”

He continues: “But with these astronomical price jumps, and as they become increasingly embedded in the global financial system, and, critically, as the direct listing on the Nasdaq will reach a wider investment base other than the usual crypto evangelists, investors must expect much greater government scrutiny."

“Governments, central banks and regulators will be keen to protect the currency status quo.

“We should expect considerably higher levels of regulation in the crypto market.  Indeed, I believe it is inevitable.”

Mr Green goes on to add: “However, Bitcoin investors shouldn’t be put off by the likelihood of greater government scrutiny.  

“Major draconian clampdowns are unlikely as digital currencies are increasingly regarded as the future of money – even by traditionalists.  They can’t put the genie back in the bottle.

“Indeed, proportionate regulation should be embraced. It would help protect investors, shore-up the market, tackle criminality, and reduce the potential possibility of disrupting global financial stability, as well as offering a potential long-term economic boost to those countries which introduce it.”

The deVere CEO concludes: “The Coinbase IPO underscores that cryptocurrencies in some form or another are here to stay – and the market is only set to grow.
“Because of this, investors should know that regulation will become a greater priority.”

Decimal Technologies, one of India’s leading FinTech firms, disbursed loans worth $200 million during the fiscal year 2020-21, through its digital lending platform. In the unprecedented times last year, the company also aided the activation of 1.5 million end customer across the country, working with banks, NBFCs and Direct Selling Agents (DSAs).  MSMEs, Loan Against Property and Home Loans form the majority of loans disbursed via the company’s AI-enabled No-Code platform.

With DSAs accounting for 65-75% of the total sourcing of loans on the platform last year, the company reported a 40% year-on-year growth in revenue in FY21. This robust growth can be attributed to an increased demand for digital solutions in the customer acquisition and lending ecosystem due to the national lockdown. It witnessed maximum traction for VahanaHub (API Aggregation platform), Payout & Incentive Management and Digital Lending solutions. In FY21, 4 million leads for account opening (Saving & Current), deposits, loans (M/SME, Retail) and credit cards were managed by the company on its AI-enabled ‘No Code’ platform, an increase of 35% from FY20.

“The pandemic resulted in newer types of credit demands coming in from different customer segments. We saw unprecedented demands for our digital offerings not only from urban cities but even customers in smaller towns were looking for a safe and agile credit disbursal process. We launched two new products to facilitate the changing customer demands. In the next fiscal year, we aim to further double down our product portfolio and branch out to underserved towns and cities to ensure access to formal credit via our partner banks and DSAs”, said Lalit Mehta, Co-founder and CEO, Decimal Technologies.

Last year, the launched two large products - Saarathi (AI-enabled digital lending marketplace for DSAs and Lenders) and VahanaHub (API Aggregation platform for all KYC, financial data, geolocation, biometric etc. APIs across various providers) – amidst the national lockdown and added 20, 000 new users comprising direct selling teams of Banks & NBFCs and third party channels (DSAs, Dealers, Connectors) on its mobile app. 

About Decimal Technologies

Established in 2009, Decimal Technologies, is a leading FinTech. Our Mantra is #DigitisingBFSI. We conceptualize, design, develop Financial Products Distribution Platform that help Banks & NBFCs reduce customer acquisition costs by moving the digital touch point closer to the customer, making life easier and convenient for the customer and workforce. Decimal engages closely with a diverse array of enterprises globally to understand the business and offer solutions that not only alleviate the pain points of the business but also make life as simple and seamless for all stakeholders. Our solutions are at the heart of award-winning digital products such as Kotak 811, AU Abhi, Bandhan neo+ and UGRO Sanjeevani. For more details, please visit: www.decimaltech.com

NFT Investments, an investment company specializing in non-fungible tokens ("NFTs"), is pleased to announce that it has raised £35 million before expenses, more than three times initially planned, for its flotation on the Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market (Access segment), valuing the Company at a market capitalisation of £50m.

The £35m share placing sets a new record amount to be raised on AQSE and was increased in response to strong investor demand. The Company initially planned to raise £10m, which was then doubled to £20m last week. The Company is expected to be admitted to AQSE on Friday, 16 April when first dealings in the shares will commence at 8am.

The Company has now completed the placing of 700 million new ordinary shares at 5p each.

NFT Investments has been launched by the co-founders of Argo Blockchain, a leading crypto miner valued at more than $1 billion, to invest in NFTs. The Company is the world’s first pure-play investment company focused exclusively on investing in NFTs to launch on a stock market in a major jurisdiction worldwide.

It is being advised by First Sentinel Corporate Finance and Novum Securities and Tennyson Securities are acting as joint brokers. First dealings in the shares are expected to commence later this month. 

Jonathan Bixby, Executive Chairman of NFT Investments, said: “It is deeply gratifying to receive strong interest from a wide range of institutional and private investors who share our belief in the vast growth potential for NFTs, just as the cryptocurrency sector has shown so far. We have upsized our offer to broaden and democratize access to this hard-to-reach market.”

Semafone®, the leading provider of data security and compliance solutions for call and contact centers, today announced a global reseller partnership with Avaya (NYSE:AVYA), the leader in cloud-based solutions designed to enhance and simplify communications and collaboration.

This agreement brings Semafone into the Avaya ecosystem of alliances, with the goal of helping contact center customers solve the complex security and compliance challenges faced as they embrace a work from anywhere model.

As multi-experience customer engagement gathers momentum, the need to support seamless, consistent user journeys across a wide range of digital touchpoints and modalities is driving a pivotal change in the contact center market. Additionally, with many industries moving to remote working models, the need for increased security is at an all-time high. A recent study found that 70% of cloud contact center users cite security and compliance as a reason to invest in cloud technology. The impact of the past year has truly driven the need for seamless, secure, PCI DSS compliant solutions as more customer payment transactions occur on the phone or over digital communication channels.

With less opportunity to shop in-person, people are exploring other ways of making purchases. Digital transformation is accelerating, and consumers want to be served in the channel of their choice - whether by phone, SMS, chat or email, they expect to be able to initiate and complete payments across any and all channels.

The integration of Semafone’s best-in-class, DevConnect certified, secure payment technology with Avaya OneCloud enterprise Session Border Controller (SBC), enables Cardprotect Voice+ to be deployed and used across all global Avaya OneCloud contact center solutions. With flexible deployment options, PCI DSS compliant telephone payment transactions can be delivered to Avaya customers in the cloud, via hybrid cloud or on-premises, helping contact centers to deliver a secure and frictionless customer experience.

Avaya and Semafone are expanding their partnership further with future plans to integrate Cardprotect Relay+, Semafone’s omnichannel payment solution with Avaya OneCloud CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service), further cementing the growing need for privacy and PCI DSS compliance across the CX industry.

“Data privacy and compliance are today’s common challenges across every touch point of the customer journey, and Avaya puts security front and center in our Avaya OneCloud platform of solutions,” said Eric Rossman, Avaya VP, Technology Partners and Alliances. “We have worked on multiple, successful security programs with Semafone in various markets. This agreement cements an existing strong alliance and grants our business partners and customers access to the value that their solutions bring. This partnership will allow us to not only deliver the best customer experience but relieve contact centers of a growing compliance burden as the global regulatory landscape evolves.”

“With upwards of 40 shared customers and many mutual channel partners, formalizing this partnership was a natural next step,” said Iain Regan, Chief Revenue Officer, Semafone. “As we continue to expand globally, Avaya will be instrumental in bringing our data security and compliance solutions to new markets. Our ability to address complex compliance issues as many organizations are migrating to remote working models will enable Avaya and its partners to help contact centers create secure and positive customer experiences across all customer engagement channels no matter where agents are based.”

For more information and details, please visit: www.semafone.com

American e-commerce website, Etsy had a huge 2020 in which it set a company record for revenue. The e-commerce sector, in general, grew tremendously in 2020 as the pandemic forced people to completely alter their shopping habits. As a result, Etsy crossed the billion-dollar revenue mark for the first time in company history after a staggering YoY increase. According to data presented by Buyshares.co.za, Etsy experienced a 110.75% YoY increase in revenue in 2020 after setting a company record $1.7B in revenue.

Etsy More Than Doubled Its Revenue In 2020

Etsy was founded in June 2005 and has its headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. The site is an e-commerce platform that specializes in handmade or vintage products as well as crafts and DIY supplies. In 2019, Etsy recorded 46.35M active buyers on their site, a figure that grew by almost 77% in 2020 to 81.9M. The number of sellers also grew by an impressive 61.7% YoY to 81.9M in 2020.

The influx of new customers was a direct result of lockdowns that were imposed in many developed markets around the world, especially in its main country of operations, the USA. As a result, Etsy dramatically increased its revenue in 2020 and crossed the milestone billion-dollar mark for the first time on its way to a company record, $1.7B in revenue. This is just under a billion-dollar increase and an over 110% YoY increase from 2019.

Etsy also saw a dramatic increase in its gross merchandise sales (GMS) which is used by e-commerce sites to measure the dollar amount made from goods purchased on its site. Etsy’s GMS rose to $10.28B in 2020 after experiencing a YoY increase of 106.7% from 2019. ETSY’s GMS also had an impressive 5-year CAGR of 33.9% from 2015-2020.

Etsy’s Marketplace Segment Generates Over 75% Of Total Revenue

Etsy’s marketplace is what it is primarily known for and generates a large share of its total revenue. In 2020, Etsy’s marketplace earned $1.3B in revenue amounting to 75.5% share of their total revenue. 2020’s marketplace revenue was also a 119.5% YoY increase from 2019. This gives Etsy’s marketplace an impressive CAGR of 44.85% from 2015-2020.

Revenue from its services segment amounted to $422M in 2020 which makes up the rest of its total revenue, an 88% YoY increase from 2019. A large part of the increase in the services segment is attributed to the growth of its on-site advertising revenue which experienced an 83.5% YoY increase in 2020.

More Than Half of Etsy’s Sales Come From Mobile Devices

Since 2017 Etsy has generated a majority of its revenue from purchases made from mobile devices after registering a 51% share for the year. In 2020, that share had risen to 61%.

You can read more about the story with more statistics and information at:  https://buyshares.co.za/blog/2021/04/13/etsy-sets-company-record-with-1-7b-revenue-110-yoy-increase-in-2020/

PCI Pal®, the global cloud provider of secure payment solutions for business communications, today announced the appointment of Mufti Monim as Chief Technology Officer to direct the strategic technical vision for the company. 

Mufti joins PCI Pal from Deko, the retail finance cloud technology provider where, as CTO, he led the product and engineering teams, developing a market leading platform used by more than 1700 merchants and processing more than 2 million credit applications, worth in excess of £2bn. 

Prior to working at Deko, Mufti was Head of Technology at Lebara Money, where he created an international money transfer platform, achieving £100 million worth of transfers within its first 12 months of operation. Previously, Mufti had worked in various roles at Lebara Mobile, including Head of Digital Technology.

Working with PCI Pal’s leadership team and reporting to CEO James Barham, Mufti will use his extensive expertise and experience within cloud and payments technologies to further advance the company’s goal to be the preferred solution provider that organisations turn to globally for achieving payment security within customer engagement environments.  

As well as spearheading technology strategy, Mufti will lead the newly formed product team at PCI Pal in the identification and development of future product enhancements and features as the Company seeks to capitalise on the opportunities before it in its fast-moving global market.

“It is such an exciting time for me to be joining this high-growth cloud payment security business. Having established itself as the market leader for cloud solutions in its space, I’m thrilled to add my expertise in these areas to the existing management team at PCI Pal, and I see significant opportunities long into the future for both its technology and products,” said Mufti. “My previous two leadership roles have been at high-growth companies too, and I feel PCI Pal is at a hugely interesting stage of its development having established significant foundations for its cloud business globally to date.”

James Barham, CEO, PCI Pal: “With Mufti’s hugely relevant cloud and payments background, plus his clear focus and drive as a high-energy technology leader, I believe that he will play a big part in the next evolutionary step in executing our technical vision and, longer-term, our product innovation capabilities. We are very excited to have Mufti join the PCI Pal family and can’t wait to see what we will accomplish together.”  

LiquidityBook, a leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based provider of buy- and sell-side trading solutions, announced today that Primus Capital, a growth-oriented private equity firm, has made a minority investment in the company. The capital will enable LiquidityBook to further scale its business and serve a broader array of fund managers and financial institutions through its industry-leading portfolio, order and execution management system (“POEMS”) platform.

LiquidityBook will use the funds to enhance its products in response to client demand for additional functionality that goes beyond the traditional POEMS. This initiative is already well underway, as the company manages its own proprietary FIX network, LBX Connect, and recently made two key hires to support it: Stephanie Minister as Managing Director of Connectivity Services and Sumit Kumar as Senior FIX Specialist. The additional resources will meaningfully accelerate product development efforts as demand for multitenant trading technology with a single code base continues to grow, and will support global expansion.

“LiquidityBook began as a true bootstrapped startup, and working to grow it into one of the leading providers in our space has been an incredibly gratifying experience for all of us,” said Kevin Samuel, CEO and co-founder of LiquidityBook. “Thanks to strong adoption and continued client demand, our product roadmap and plans for expansion are as ambitious as ever. We have reached an inflection point where capital funding will accelerate those plans, and we are very pleased to have identified Primus as the ideal partner. Primus has a well-established track record of helping growing companies reach the next level. We look forward to a fruitful relationship and plan to leverage their financial support and strategic guidance to deliver real efficiencies for new and existing clients.” 

“In what has been a period of uncertainty for many in the industry, our growth has been a constant,” said Sean Sullivan, Chief Revenue Officer at LiquidityBook. “As the number of industry firms waking up to the limitations of legacy systems continues to increase, we are rapidly winning market share thanks to our multitenant, SaaS-based model and superior functionality. This is key validation, but it also means we need to think bigger in order to continue our trajectory. This capital infusion will allow us to build out our team, make ongoing enhancements to the LBX suite and reach new clients and prospects in new markets.”

“LiquidityBook stands out as the most innovative solution in the POEMS space, addressing the primary pain points around trading flexibility, asset class expansion, cost control and compliance,” said Ron Hess, Managing Director at Primus. “We have repeatedly heard dissatisfaction with the status quo, but apprehension around making a change given the mission-criticality of these types of systems. On the contrary, LiquidityBook’s customers rave about them as a business partner, and were universally surprised by how seamlessly the onboarding process went. The most frequent sentiment we heard was ‘I wish I had done this years ago.’”    

LiquidityBook was advised in the transaction by Innovation Advisors, a technology-focused global investment bank based in New York and London. LiquidityBook recently announced record revenues and overall client growth in 2020.